US Marines drink snake blood in Thai training exercise called 'Cobra Gold 2013'
By NATALIE O’NEILL
From
Post Wire Services
February 21, 2013
Women won the right to join men in battle, but they probably weren’t expecting to face something like this.
A group of US Marines, including several female leathernecks, drank the blood of live cobras in a a gut-churning, “Fear Factor”-style training program in Thailand yesterday.
One of the female Marines was photographed with snake blood splattered on her face, as she closed her eyes and tried her best to look gung-ho for cobra juice.
The unnerving exercise — known as “Cobra Gold 2013” — was done in conjunction with a group of Thai soldiers, who demonstrated how to catch and kill the poisonous serpents.
More than 13,000 military personnel from seven different countries took part in the survival-skills event in the jungles of Thailand.
In the 10-day drill, soldiers not only catch and eat snakes with their hands, but chow down on bugs and slaughter chickens to stay alive.
The multinational training program aims to improve military relationships among countries with similar goals, and includes troops from Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia.
Yesterday, the American and Thai soldiers traded notes on how to survive in a tropical forest near an army base east of Bangkok.
Last year, several soldiers ate scorpions and other deadly insects, which some said toughened their ability to survive in nature — an essential skill to have during wartime.
“The Thais are showing us a lot of tools, as well as resources available to us in the jungle that we will be able to exploit to survive in that environment,” 1st Lt. Zachary Duncan wrote on a military blog last year.
More photos here
